Piers Morgan proud to be Irish!

Now that Larry King is mercifully being put to pasture at CNN, the smart money says that former British tabloid editor (and current judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent) Piers Morgan will take his place.

Morgan, the Simon Cowell clone on Talent, a big ratings hit for NBC, is also well-known in the U.K. for his interviewing and writing skills, apart from the antics he got up to when editing the Rupert Murdoch tabloid News of the World. And the 45-year-old is also quick to talk up his Irish heritage at every opportunity.

Morgan was actually born Piers O’Meara to a father who hailed from Co. Offaly. His dad died when he was only a year old, and when mom remarried a Welshman Piers was given the surname Pughe-Morgan.

Morgan was one of the soccer fans who freaked out last year when France’s Thierry Henry flagrantly abused the rules, costing Ireland a place in the World Cup. And though he let Henry know it in his Daily Mail sports column, Morgan tempered his criticism a bit to let fly on his real nemesis – Irish soccer icon Roy Keane.

“As an Irishman, I simply wanted (Henry’s) devious little Gallic torso dismembered over the Champs-Elysees at first light. But then, just as my pencil was being sharpened to commit heresy, Roy Keane entered the debate, like the snarling, vile, putrid pitdog that he is,” wrote Morgan last year.

Keane, he added, is a “humorless, nasty, violent, foul-mouthed, selfish, disloyal thug who injures opponents, walks away from his country in the middle of a World Cup, abuses all and sundry, and resides on a Citizen Kane-style pedestal of egotistical, lonely, unjustified self-adoration.”

Imagine old Larry over at CNN letting fly with such vitriol? CNN just might get interesting again once Morgan comes on board.

English fans were none too pleased that Morgan described himself in his column as Irish when discussing Henry and Keane. 'My father was Vincent Eamonn O'Mara from Co. Offaly . . . My mother (Gabrielle) was one of the Irish clan of Cantophers. Surely anyone aware of my drinking habits would know I'm Irish!” he said.